ARLINGTON, Va. — The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) announced that it has filed comments in response to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) request for information (RFI) on energy conservation standards for commercial package air conditioning and heating equipment. The RFI solicited input from stakeholders to help DOE determine if more stringent energy conservation standards are justified and if DOE should adopt the part-load integrated energy efficiency ratio (IEER) as the new regulated energy efficiency metric in lieu of the current full-load EER.

AHRI said that, in its comments, it noted that the energy consumption of commercial package air conditioners has been significantly reduced over the past few years due to the implementation of design requirements in ASHRAE Standard 90.1. AHRI urged DOE to properly model these products to fully capture the energy savings that have been achieved since DOE last amended the energy conservation standards. Finally, AHRI cautioned DOE against switching to the IEER metric before addressing and resolving issues related to the alternative efficiency determination method (AEDM), the basic model definition, and the uncertainty in testing measurements due to the use of part-load metrics.

Publication date: 3/11/2013

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